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Serpil Midyatli
Photo: IMAGO/Petra Nowack / IMAGO/penofoto
In the state elections in Schleswig-Holstein, the SPD state and parliamentary group leader Serpil Midyatli suffered a defeat.
The 46-year-old lost in her Kiel-Ost constituency in the fight for a direct mandate from the nationally unknown CDU politician Seyran Papo (34).
Papo, who works as an interpreter, got 29.4 percent, Midyatli only got 26.2 percent.
In the 2017 election, the SPD candidate gained 14.2 percentage points more.
Midyatli is also the deputy federal chairwoman of the SPD.
For decades, the Kiel-Ost constituency was considered one of the safest in the country for the SPD.
In addition to Kiel-Ost, the SPD also lost the direct mandates in Kiel-North and Kiel-West – in each case against Green Party candidates.
Midyatli's defeat fits the election night of the SPD: According to projections, the Social Democrats, with their top candidate Thomas Losse-Müller, received only 15.9 percent of the second votes - 11.3 percentage points less than in 2017. The previous negative value in a state election in Schleswig-Holstein was in the year 2009 was 25.4 percent.
The CDU with Prime Minister Daniel Günther, on the other hand, celebrated a clear victory and came up with 43.4 percent in projections.
“The party and I myself, we are all very, very disappointed.
We fought hard to make it different," said Losse-Müller.
The SPD campaign was very good, "but in the end we didn't manage to get through with the issues."
Midyatli backed Losse-Müller that evening: the SPD had backed the right issues and "the right candidate," she said.
The 46-year-old had waived a candidacy for Losse-Müller and emphasized that she did not want to perform a “one-woman show” given the strategic orientation of the SPD and the generational change that went with it.
hba/dpa/AFP
